Proposal
by Uchuuwrites
Summary: Jasper wants to propose to Peridot, but Peridot has some reservations about marrying her.


"Dude, are you okay?" Amethyst's voice comes and her sister jumps, the pepper in her hand falling onto the floor. "I have never seen you like this. What's up?"

"It's nothing." She lies, bending down to pick up the vegetable and setting it into the bowl of water in the sink.

"I just scared you and look at your hand. What did you do?"

Jasper looks down at the alien print band-aid on her middle finger, flexing it before looking over at her. "I sliced my finger cutting some tomatoes. It's no big deal."

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"Can you ever keep a secret?" She asks rhetorically.

Amethyst rolls her eyes, "well screw you too, babe." She steals a slice of tomato sitting on the cutting board at the island. "You cooking for Peri?"

"Yes, and it's almost done so I would love if you would leave." She looks over to her sister and smiles.

"Ooh, planning something special?"

"No." She lies, pulling her hair down from her bun and untying the apron from around her back, "but when your best friend is my girlfriend, you two never shut up when you're in close range." Jasper goes over to the cabinet to grab some dishes, trying to breathe and keep herself focused and from spilling her plans to Amethyst.

"Aw, you jealous sis? Where is she at anyway?"

"Asleep with the puppies. Apparently, she didn't get any sleep because her roommate was very loud."

"Hey, it's not my fault she was home."

"I guess it's not your fault your girlfriend is so loud in bed either. You can go now, by the way."

"Well, that just means I'm doing something right." She smirks, sliding down from the stool she's sitting on. "No need to be pushy, I'm going, I'm going."

Jasper becomes much calmer when her sister leaves. She sets the plates on the counter, puts her apron away and cleans up all the extra ingredients she has scattered around the kitchen counters. She's usually not that messy in the kitchen—learning to clean up as she worked—but she has been completely scattered since she has planned this day out. It was finally going to be the day where she'd ask her girlfriend to marry her, start some stupid wedding, and hopefully spend the rest of her life with her ridiculously goofy—future—wife.

It just wasn't going as planned.

The main reason Peridot and Jasper didn't live together was because all her doctors that just so happened to live three hours south of where Jasper had. Between recovering from her surgery, the blood tests, physical therapy three times a week, and finding time to come up in between her doctor appointments was both mentally and physically exhausting for her. The good thing was most of Peridot's belongings had already been at her house. A mixture of her clothing, gaming equipment, even her special chair had taken a special spot in—their—Jasper's bedroom.

It wasn't just the surgery and doctor appointments that kept them from living together; a large portion was Peridot's commitment issues. It stemmed from her mother and father's multiple marriages and divorces, and her being an only child with three step-mother's and a father. She was afraid of falling into the same situation her parents had been and even though she loved Jasper, she didn't want to complicate things with marriage. She's grown a lot since those conversations. Sometimes she talks about having children one day or will bring up things like 'if we ever get married, but Jasper has been patient and wants those ifs to be whens. Jasper has been working up a plan for the past few weeks. Dinner, dessert, a custom-made ring, and hopefully a 'yes' from Peridot.

She heads to the bedroom to wake up Peridot after cleaning and setting plates on the living room table. Peridot's already awake, one hand on her phone and the other being attacked by the small puppy on the bed. "Amethyst just texted me that you're acting weird." She says with a yawn. "What happened to your finger?" She reaches a hand out to touch Jasper's but she's too far away.

"It's no big deal and just tell Amethyst I know where she lives." Jasper smiles as she climbs onto the bed and leans over to give Peridot a kiss, the puppy quickly barking at her. "Oh shush."

"She doesn't like you because you kicked her out of bed last night and she's very resentful."

"I think you're reading too much into it. Besides, don't you hate dogs?"

"I prefer cats." She says as she sits up, lifting her arms above to stretch. "But I like our dogs because they are our dogs."

"Mhm, give it a few months and they will be very large."

"Too large you can't kick them out of bed anymore." She snickers, patting a spot on the bed and the dog quickly comes over to attack her hand; another dog following after popping it's head up from underneath the covers.

"When they get that big they are not sharing our bed." Jasper says as she picks up the dogs who struggle in her arms. "Dinner's ready by the way. I'm going to put the dogs in the kitchen."

"Did you make dessert?" She asks, as she watches Jasper get up from the bed.

"I don't think you're going to like it. It's chocolate." Peridot wrinkles her nose at the word. "I don't understand how you don't like sweets."

"Well, I like you and I'd like to think that's good enough in the sweet department."

Peridot takes her time getting out of bed, and even longer getting dressed. She shoves a pair of shorts on and looks for the tank top she was wearing when she came over originally. It was on the floor thanks to the pups yanking it from opened dresser drawer. She can hear them barking already, hating the gate that they had to be in when it was meal time. It was Jasper's fault they were in there and it was most likely the reason the dogs didn't like Jasper very much. Ever since the fiasco where a bottle of wine had spilled on the floor, she has been locking the dogs up during all meals so they wouldn't get into trouble any longer.

The puppies whine when Peridot comes into the living room, hoping that she'll let them out but get distracted by their food bowls being filled. The dogs stay quiet after that and Peridot uses the bathroom before she comes into the living room to lay down on the couch, refusing to move for Jasper to sit down until Jasper moves her.

"What did you make?" Peridot asks, shoving pillows behind her back as she sits up.

"Lemon chicken."

"Ew, there are peppers."

"You love peppers. Why are you being so picky?" Jasper asks, handing her a plate which she takes and then silverware.

"Do you have any idea how loud Amethyst is?"

"She's my sister." Jasper reminds her, taking a sip from her wine glass on the table before beginning to eat.

"Yeah, but do you know?" She asks again, taking a bite of pasta she had stabbed onto her fork.

"Yes. Our mom worked nights so she had people over all the time."

"I know; I was one of them. It's how we met."

"You were close to dating her, too. It's good you didn't because I'm the better choice."

"You would think that but Peach and Daisy don't agree." She says, looking behind her to the gate where the dogs are biting are scratching at their now empty food bowls.

"I can't believe I let you name the dogs after Mario characters." Jasper sighs.

"I can't believe you obsessively main Peach in Mario Kart. She's not even that good."

"Take that back!"

Peridot sticks her tongue out.

When they finish eating, Jasper looks at Peridot a few times nervously. She's not sure if now is the right time, or if a right time even exists for what she's about to say. "So, I want to ask you something." She says, setting her dirty plate onto the table and picks up her wine glass for a sip of liquid courage. "I've known you for a really long time…And I know we've talked about our future together and-"

"Jas-" Peridot tries to stop her but is quickly interrupted.

"And, maybe I don't have some big speech planned but I don't really need one to tell you how I feel. I just know that I want to be with you and do all those things we've talked about doing; like moving in together, and raising these dogs together, and having kids and being a family. And I know you think it's scary, and you're afraid of what could happen but I would just really love it if you would marry me."

Peridot blinks, trying to take a moment to process what her girlfriend has said to her. "No."

Jasper wasn't expecting a 'yes' but she can't help but ask anyway. "Why not?"

Peridot chuckles, "let me explain because obviously no didn't come out right." She sets her plate down, "you know it's not that I don't want to marry you because I would love to marry you. I just don't want to say yes and directly jump into some big wedding chaos and then regret it."

"Do you think you would regret marrying me?"

"No. Of course I wouldn't regret marrying you, but I'm afraid of things I can't predict. What if one of us dies? What if we end up getting a divorce in six months? Not that we would get a divorce. What if we get married and it's great and then we start to argue and fight and getting married tears us apart?"

"Marriage comes with a lot of what-ifs, but you can't let any of that stop you if it's what you want to do. I know you're still afraid of your parents failing marriages but it doesn't mean it would happen to you."

"You've been talking to Garnet again, haven't you?"

Jasper rolls her eyes. "We don't even have to get married right away or even in five or ten years. I just, want the possibility it will happen one day. I know you said you would but I want an answer because I don't really see myself marrying anyone else but you at the end of the day."

"What if I say yes and we just never get married because I'm too…Afraid to go through with it?"

"I'm not saying that I'm going to break up with you if we never get married. I just want you to wear a ring and maybe you'll let me call you fiancée."

"You got me a ring?" Peridot moves to straighten out her legs, "let me see it."

Jasper reaches into her pocket and grabs a small velvet box from it. She had spent most of the past few weeks looking at places, going as far as asking Garnet, Bismuth, and Peridot's father and step-mother for help. It was more of a reassurance that if she got a ring, and tried to ask that Peridot would say yes, but deep-down Jasper knew she wouldn't. It wasn't that Peridot was against marriage, she was just completely frightened by the idea of losing Jasper and they were both aware of it.

"I honestly didn't know what to get for you so I asked a few people. Your dad told me that it's not really common practice to wear engagement rings."

"Huh? Yeah, my dad didn't get my step-mother an engagement ring and she didn't really press the concept. But, when my step-mother got remarried—well you've seen her wedding ring."

"Here." She hands Peridot the small box instead of opening it herself, feeling rather sheepish from the conversation.

Peridot opens the box and peeks inside at the ring sitting there. It's not a traditional ring by any means, it was an infinity ring, white gold twisted with peridot and jasper gems. She could immediately see how important this ring had been to Jasper. The simple meaning of their names intertwined almost made her completely change her mind. "See, this makes me want to marry you."

Jasper laughs, "how come?"

"Because, you're sitting her telling me how much you want to be with me, and would love to marry me because marriage means so much to you. Then, you got me this ring." She pulls the small ring from the slot. "I just don't want to give you false hope that I'll marry you." She presses her thumb over the gems along the band, thinking about putting it on but at the same time wanting to chuck the thing at Jasper.

"I understand that you're afraid but I'm never going to force you into marrying me if it isn't what you want."

"But I want to marry you…" She trails off, deciding to slide the ring on her fourth finger of her left hand. "Maybe not right now, but it's becoming less of a no and more of a maybe."

"Ooh, I got a maybe. That's new."

Peridot sighs, "let's just take it slow with this." Jasper nods. "We'll start with the ring, and I'll see how I feel."

"So, I can stop calling you my girlfriend?"

"You really want to call me your fiancée, don't you?" She gets up, heading over to the gate to let the puppies out. "Well, I guess I'll just have to accept your proposal because I want to keep the ring."

"I can't believe you're using me for expensive jewelry." Jasper says as the puppies come over to the couch, desperately trying to jump onto the table to smell the food. Jasper retaliates by picking up the plates and bringing them into the kitchen. "So, can I tell people we're engaged?"

"Yes, but on the condition you let me play as Peach this time."

"Fine." Jasper pouts, making Peridot come over to kiss her on the cheek.


End file.
